


Joan of Arc

by oceansinmychest



Category: Wentworth (TV)
Genre: Drabble, F/F, Flashback, a younger softer joan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-07
Updated: 2017-02-07
Packaged: 2018-09-22 14:48:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9612215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oceansinmychest/pseuds/oceansinmychest
Summary: Emotions represent weakness and she finds herself crippled by this skin. Mistakes do not guarantee perfection. Mistakes guarantee complete and utter condemnation.





	

**Author's Note:**

> There is something soft and seemingly gentle in the way that Joan remembers Jianna. It makes for something sweetly painful, I'd say. Jianna's an intrinsic part of Joan's life, building her up and ultimately playing into her catalyst. I wanted to try to demonstrate that. It's not my OTP, but I definitely wanted to give it a shot!

Emotions are weakness and she finds herself crippled by this skin. Mistakes do not guarantee perfection. Mistakes guarantee complete and utter condemnation.

Joan Ferguson is methodical in the way she presents herself. During her younger years, she takes to wearing freshly ironed skirts that hang stiff thanks to a generous amount of starch. Her stance is rigid, as though she belongs on a soldier's line out on the field rather than a prison complex. Irredisputely, her father would have taken pride in that fate.

Instead, she works in a correctional facility where the women are cruel. They think her a bizarre creation due to her mechanical stiffness, her awkward height, and her granite eyes that hide all faults. They bark and they howl at her. They spit at her.

During lock up, one of them – one _above_ the dogs – doesn't laugh.

She says, “I'm sorry; they're always angry. They don't know what else to be.”

Her name is Jianna Riley.

Joan doesn't know how to respond. She shakes her head, the fringe of her bob cutting into her pale cheeks. She mistrusts Jianna despite the apology present in her dark brown eyes. It's easier to mistrust since by nature, human beings are cruel and seek to hate you. Joan learned this as a child; it's a lesson her father insured she would never forget.

The progression of their encounters are naught but fleeting conversations. During rec, Jianna approaches her again. This time, with a question.

“Have you ever been to an empty parking lot in your car before and stared at the stars?”

“Why would I?” Ferguson asks in a state of active disbelief. “That serves no purpose aside from a recreational one. I have better things to do with my time rather than gawk at the sky.”

“Would you... do that for me? Tell me what it's like. How you feel.”

Joan begins to protest. Her jaw goes slack. From discomfort, her shoulders stiffen. One hand holds her own wrist in a prison hold. Her father never taught her how to deal with this – this burden – only how to tune it out.

“I suppose... Just this once.”

Weeks later, Joan Ferguson relents. Dark, glittering eyes trace the walls that form Jianna's cell. Both women possess a fragility that goes unspoken. As outcasts, prisoner and guard find solace in one another's company. Stiffer than a board, the deputy sits on the edge of Riley's bed. The inmate's a mother-to-be with a soft swell where her stomach is; it speaks to her growing anxieties.

"You were correct; the stars are beautiful out in the open. Their brightness reminds me of you."

The hesitation of Joan's hand spider webbed in the air lingers above Jianna's curly hair. The same Jianna whom rests her head in Joan's lap. There's a rare sort of innocence to loving her. Because love has to be a possession, an object, in order to find a loophole in her father's speech. _This_ is the softest thing that Joan has ever held onto.

Joan represents the patron saint of a young woman's demise. A prisoner in the shadows will use this as leverage, blackmail, and call it something freakish rather than the beautiful moment that it is. Deep down, Joan knows that she breaks everything she touches. As a young girl, she reached for a monarch butterfly, but her fingers held onto the wings and the creature fell to the grass, dead on arrival.

Still, she tugs off her leather gloves that squelch in protest. The young woman kneads her leg, seemingly content. Joan's eyes burn a hole into the wall, too afraid to catch a glimpse of Jianna's silhouette.

She runs her fingers through Jianna's hair over and over again.

 

 


End file.
